Monday, October 22, 2007

Random Thought #7

Regarding random thought #7 (RT7)

"7. I am confused by the fact that non Christian men seem to be far more interested in me as a person, attracted to me, and less critical of my body than my brothers in Christ. I am even more confused by all of the apparent "men vs. women" discussion about and among Christian singles online."

I have been reading a lot about the feminization of the church and of society the last 7 months or so. I have found much of what I have read to be very enlightening and at the same time very depressing because it has caused me to wonder if there is any way out of the mess.

What does this have to do with RT7 you ask? Well I have had a hard time with some of the stuff I was reading and hearing, especially at first, because it was so different from much of what I have been exposed to. I am very thankful, though, for the man who first started me thinking about a lot of this stuff even though I argued with him about some of it because I didn't understand...I'll have to write about that at another time.

My point (and I do have one) is that I am eager for my sisters in Christ to understand about what has happened in our culture, the relationships between men and women, and in the church, to see what feminism has wrought. We need to grasp this ladies! For our own good, for the good of the body of Christ, for the good of society. I am convinced that this. Because I am so eager for this understanding to happen sometimes I get frustrated with some (actually very few) of the points made by those blogging about these issues. Some of the stuff that gets discussed I think is a roadblock to the ability of some women to understand. One of those issues is the concept of beauty or desirability. This seems to get discussed a good bit by those exploring the issues. Some of what is said led me in part to RT7.

Back to RT7. Today I have been thinking that RT7 may in part be a numbers thing...I mean there seem to be lots more men outside the church than in the church. If only a certain percentage of men find me attractive, lets say 10% to make the math simpler, and I have met 100 Christian men and 700 non believing men of course that would mean that there would be more non-believing men who find me attractive to the tune of 10 vs 70 (hmm.......that probably means the actual percentage is lower than 10%....lol).

I suppose I could do as some men who participate in the online discussions I have been reading do and choose to engage in romantic relationships with unbelievers. And in truth I have actually tried that in the past. Didn't work for me. Besides being unable to relate to each other about what is very important to me, faith in Christ (you know the results of the often mentioned unequal yoking), there was always pressure for premarital sex (don't get me wrong....I don't think sex is wrong or dirty at all, just that God means sex to be within marriage.....marital sex, that's the ticket!). Sex appears to be an expected part of most contemporary dating relationships. The few non believing men I was involved with lost patience with my desire to wait for marriage and did so pretty quickly. So for me this is not an option.

I hope that one day I will meet one of the minority of Christian men that are attracted to me and that I will be able to enjoy being some one's wife. I acknowledge that the likelihood that I will marry is not great, but I still have hope ;)